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Who would have thought? Chicago Fed National Activity Index Highlights March was not a good month for the economy, an assessment confirmed by the national activity index which fell steeply to minus 0.42 vs an already weak and downwardly revised minus 0.18 in February. And the first quarter as a whole was
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As previously discussed, and relayed to the finance minister in Greece, there is no reason to assume the ECB will cut off liquidity to Greek banks. First, those banks are private institutions, and regulated and supervised by the ECB, who has deemed them ‘solvent’ and ‘adequately capitalized’ and therefore eligible for liquidity
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Greece must threaten Grexit to get best outcome from Troika Edward talks to Warren Mosler, chairman of Consulier Engineering on why the EU’s approach to the Greek debt crisis has failed to lift the Greek … So for decades the BOJ has tried to create inflation and failed, for 7 years the
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Inventories looking excessive: Wholesale Trade Highlights The economy may be solid right now but inventories at the wholesale level look heavy, rising 0.1 percent in December vs a noticeable 0.4 percent decline in sales at the wholesale level. The mismatch drives up the stock-to-sales ratio by 1 tenth to 1.22 which is
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Maybe they’ll invite me there for Thanksgiving- see where it all started! ;) Erdogan: You Can’t Decide Interest Rates According to Inflation By Ali Berat Meric Feb 4 (Bloomberg) — Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan says making interest-rate cuts dependent on slowing inflation is the result of a “wrong mentality.” Erdogan, speaking
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A Modest Proposal for Resolving the Eurozone Crisis By Y. Varoufakis, S. Holland AND J.K. Galbraith 1. Prologue Europe is fragmenting. While in the past year the European Central Bank has managed to stabilise the bond markets, the economies of the European core and its periphery are drifting apart. As this happens,
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This is interesting in that it isn’t showing any pickup in consumer spending from the lower oil prices: Redbook Highlights Retail sales picked up in the January 31 week based on Redbook’s sample whose year-on-year same-store sales rate rose 6 tenths from the prior week to plus 3.8 percent. TV sales and
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So just maybe the high rates are supporting the inflation? Brazil Central Bank Signals Further Increase in Interest Rates (WSJ) “Advances achieved in the fight against inflation…aren’t enough yet,” the bank’s monetary-policy committee said in minutes from last week’s meeting, when its policy rate, known as Selic, was raised to 12.25% from
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Jobless Claims 265k, -43k to 15-Year Low in Holiday Week. This is the lowest level for initial claims since April 15, 2000 when it was 259,000. The previous week’s level was revised up by 1,000 from 307,000 to 308,000. The 4-week moving average was 298,500, a decrease of 8,250 from the previous
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Looks bad to me. Remember, for GDP to grow at last year’s rate, all the pieces on average have to contribute that much. And, as previously discussed, hard to see how starts and sales can grow with cash buyers and mtg purchase apps declining year over year. The charts look like we
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